Storage policies permit a user to manage storage for virtual machines (VMs). A storage policy includes rules and rule values describing requirements for storage resources. A different storage policy is created based on the capabilities of each individual data store, individual VM, group of data stores, or group of VMs. Storage policies may be grouped by their storage requirements (e.g., latency, replication, encryption, etc.). If a new data store is added to the inventory with a new set of values for a given capability, it becomes necessary to create a new storage policy to use those values.
This existing process of creating separate storage policies leads to unmanageably large numbers of storage polices in systems having hundreds or thousands of VMs. In these cases, it may become impractical, burdensome, and/or cost prohibitive to create all these different storage policies to accommodate the capabilities of all the various data stores in the inventory.
Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding parts throughout the drawings.